Cornwall Weekend

I had a long weekend off work to go to Cornwall as it was my grandsons 10th birthday. I traveled alone and stayed in my small tent on a quiet, Camping & Caravan Club site at Indian Queens.

Whenever I visit another area of the country on a weekend, I like to try out one of the local Parkruns, and this trip was no exception, so I headed 20 minutes up the road to Lanhydrock House, near Bodmin, which is a late Victorian country house set in magnificent grounds and is now owned by the National Trust.

I attended the briefing for those who had not run the course before and I was told that this course was a little hilly. That turned out to be an understatement.

The course begins with a downhill stretch on a tarmac path, then it heads uphill onto a dirt track before a long downhill stretch as you approach the river. It then winds back uphill to a field, which you cross and join up with another tarmac path which heads uphill again. It is then downhill for maybe 150m before you veer off the path and onto the grass to the finish line.

The finish line

Me with the house in the background

Considering the hills and the multi terrain aspect of the course, I did quite well, coming in 65th place out of 219 runners in 27:43 minutes, and I was 9th in my age category. So all in all I was quite pleased.

Sunday morning was grey, but quite warm and very humid and, I was awake early so I decided to go for a long run along a route I had previously devised. This took in a road loop to begin before crossing the busy A30 road by a footbridge which would take me onto the Goss Moor Trail.

The trail was mostly on dirt tracks, although I did leave this a couple of times onto muddy tracks where horses had obviously been.

I was in no rush and so time was irrelevant and I just wanted a long, easy run, which this turned out to be. Except for losing my orientation at one stage and I ended up doing a unintentional loop around a pond. Ooops!

My non running friends thought I was mad running whilst on holiday but, I was on my own and had time to kill, so why not. I saw some lovely scenery on both runs, and I chatted to some people at the Parkrun, although I didn't see a single soul on the Goss Moor Trail run, so that was peaceful.